Unions to restart talks amid strike
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Union leaders have been preparing to restart talks with the Government to avert a second national strike as public sector workers staged walkouts around the country.
Hospitals, schools, social welfare offices and local authorities shut down as part of the one-day action over plans to slash €1.3bn from the public sector wage bill.
Pickets were mounted at several Government departments, outside the Dail and at prisons, fire stations, hospitals and schools nationwide.
Ahead of an announcement by Congress - the umbrella organisation for trade unions - John White, secretary general of teachers' union ASTI indicated they were getting ready to re-enter negotiations with the Government.
"While teachers are anxious to get back to their classrooms, further industrial action may be the only way of convincing the Government that a quarter of a million workers, their families and many others want a fairer way," he said.
But he added ASTI "will work intensively" with other unions in discussions with the Government this week to seek to resolve the crisis.
Patricia Callan, director of the Small Firms Association, said widespread disruption caused by the strike was damaging the entire economy. She urged the Government to hold the line on plans to cut public sector pay and pensions bill in the upcoming Budget.
While other public sector workers downed tools, flood relief workers and emergency staff in Clare, Galway and Cork were allowed to continue work to deal with the worst flooding in living memory in parts of the west and south.
Union leaders said critical medical services, including intensive, elderly and maternity care as well as cancer services would not be affected but thousands of hospital appointments, planned admissions and surgery have been cancelled.
Meanwhile, the AA has reported six-kilometre tailbacks on the road to Newry in a suspected surge of people travelling to Northern Ireland to shop.
Press Association
